14 down, 10 to go.
Because the AFL chugs via its bye rounds, a six-game weekend nonetheless supplied loads of leisure – and controversy – to final us the week till all of it begins once more.
Scoring was again in a giant method – six of 12 groups cracked triple figures, whereas Hawthorn managed 97 in spoiling Richmond and Dustin Martin’s social gathering. Two video games even had each side attain that mark.
Sydney did Sydney issues to Adelaide of their newest 15-minute burst of magnificence to stay the very best crew within the league with daylight second, whereas Brisbane’s surge again in direction of the eight continued and GWS bought a badly wanted 4 factors towards a lacklustre Port Adelaide.
However after all, the dialogue shall be dominated by Collingwood’s win over North Melbourne on Sunday afternoon: and from teaching blunders to umpiring stuff-ups, elegant Nick Daicos acts and touching Brayden Maynard speeches, it shouldn’t shock that I’ve bought a lot to say about every little thing that occurred at Marvel Stadium.
Let’s start.
1. North copped the mom of all stitch-ups
Watching the ultimate quarter of Sunday afternoon’s match at Marvel Stadium was like witnessing a slow-moving automotive crash.
I can’t recall a extra brutal loss to witness as a impartial supporter; from 54 factors up and seemingly on target for a day of long-awaited enjoyment of entrance of an endlessly affected person contingent of diehard supporters, North Melbourne proceeded to be overrun by Collingwood’s newest never-say-die comeback.
There was a lot to admire within the Magpies’ extraordinary final quarter and a half; their relentless dedication to assault, their good expertise on the most vital levels, their confidence in taking aggressive choices wherever they’re on the bottom, and above all, the unbelievable, generational expertise that’s Nick Daicos.
Equally, there may be a lot in regards to the Roos’ fadeout that will rip the center out of the stoniest supporter: from horror defensive turnovers from Zac Fisher, to an important mind fade in midfield from Tom Powell to surrender a 50m penalty and Daicos aim, to – and extra on this later – the baffling, and in the end disastrous, choice to sub out Will Phillips at three quarter time after a by and huge wonderful tagging job on Daicos.
However there was one thing unmistakable that was simply as accountable for Collingwood’s comeback as any Pie or Roo was – even Daicos: the umpiring choices (or moderately, non-decisions) that noticed the Roos cop the almightiest stitch-up but seen in 2024.
The failure of the rating evaluation system to overturn Jack Crisp’s aim within the second quarter regardless of a transparent and apparent contact on the ball by Bailey Scott, awarding an finally important six factors, was a farcical failure of a system that was imagined to have clamped down on such moments.
The ARC operator had 45 seconds in between Crisp’s ‘aim’ and the ball being bounced within the center to seek out the required second and deem it suspicious sufficient to additional cease play and double-check; that was lengthy sufficient for Fox Footy to discover a replay that clearly confirmed Scott’s fingers bending again because the ball whistled by.
Consequently, Jack Riewoldt – and everybody watching on TV – was baffled when the ball was bounced within the center and the aim confirmed. Whereas it’s too far to say that it value North Melbourne the sport – the butterfly impact would have seen the match play out completely otherwise – it will be exhausting to not really feel aggrieved at shedding by some extent when one thing like that goes towards you in case you’re a Kangaroos fan.
I wrote a number of months in the past that the crackdown on rating evaluations, and the wasted time that they brought about, was a mandatory evil if we had been decided to stamp out errors. I believe this instance proves my level.
However that wasn’t essentially the most egregious error to merciless the Roos on Sunday: I’m much more aggravated in regards to the choice to not pay a 50m penalty to Bailey Scott within the dying seconds, after Steele Sidebottom and Beau McCreery charged over the mark believing the Daicos hack Scott had marked hadn’t travelled 15 metres.
Sidebottom and McCreery got infinitely extra leeway than they, or another participant, would have been granted at another time of the match, or with a extra important margin.
(And as an apart, I ponder how many individuals who clamour for the umpires placing the whistle away and letting the gamers play within the last minutes are infuriated by this instance of precisely that simply because it benefitted Collingwood?)
Let’s name this what it’s: cowardly. It’s an umpire not prepared to grow to be public enemy primary in a stadium stuffed with Magpies supporters, and be talked about on social media and on tv for the subsequent two days, for a call made, no matter whether or not it was right or not.
It’s not the primary time the Magpies have taken benefit of such an unwillingness to blow the whistle late in tight video games. The truth is, I’d go as far as to say that a good portion of the Pies’ acclaimed close-game clutchness is a results of their unerring and completely justified religion in umpiring cowardice to refuse to pay all however essentially the most blatant free kicks late in tight video games.
There have been different moments, too, that I’m extra forgiving of: Nick Daicos escaping a holding the ball choice, a missed throw from Steele Sidebottom a couple of minutes later, Isaac Quaynor getting away with a extremely harmful push on Eddie Ford that noticed him take out Cameron Zurhaar and miraculously escape severe damage himself.
Errors are an inevitable a part of footy, and so they are inclined to even out over time – for Roos followers, it was solely every week in the past that they benefitted from THAT Elliot Yeo holding the ball, as a working example.
Errors occur, and it’s luck of the draw once they happen and who they profit. There’s no pro-Collingwood conspiracy behind them, simply the footy gods night up their very own colossal stitch-up within the dying minutes of their draw with Fremantle.
What’s infinitely extra insupportable is when an individual paid to make large, proper choices chooses to not within the largest moments of all. Which is precisely what occurred to rob North and Scott of a golden likelihood to win that sport.
Zac Fisher rues a missed shot at aim within the last seconds of North Melbourne’s loss to Collingwood. (Picture by Michael Willson/AFL Images through Getty Photographs)
2. What on earth was Clarko considering?
Having completed an admirable job to curtail, if not outright cease, Nick Daicos for 3 quarters on Sunday afternoon, Will Phillips would have been forgiven for considering congratulations had been so as on the three-quarter time huddle.
As a substitute, the late inclusion was taken out of the sport, subbed out for Jaidyn Stephenson in a call so baffling it took everybody unexpectedly.
“I can’t consider Will Phillips was taken off as a sub. He’s actually match and was doing a great job on Nick Daicos,” Collingwood nice Tony Shaw remarked on 3AW.
With veteran Liam Shiels moved onto Daicos to attempt to quell his affect, the transfer shortly backfired with the Magpies star essentially the most influential participant on the bottom within the last quarter.
He had 10 disposals, 4 inside 50s, 4 rating involvements, and most outstanding of all, three aim assists in half-hour of magnificent soccer to will the Pies dwelling.
So what was Alastair Clarkson’s reasoning after the sport for taking Phillips off?
“He was doing a great job however we had been fatiguing and needed the freshness of the sub,” the coach stated after the match.
“We thought Liam Shiels might go in and end the job. I don’t suppose it was pivotal within the end result.”
Sorry Clarko, however that could be a Mount Everest-sized pile of garbage in each side.
First: in case you had been certainly fatiguing, why take off a 22-year outdated as a substitute of the 33-year outdated Shiels – not to mention anticipate the latter to maintain up with one of many quickest and fittest gamers within the sport?
Secondly: if Clarkson doesn’t suppose Daicos’ affect with out the tag was considerably larger than with it, even contemplating the 2 third-quarter targets he booted (each from free kicks that weren’t Phillips’ fault within the least) he was watching a distinct sport.
And simply as importantly: Phillips is a younger participant who has struggled to seek out his ft at AFL degree in his 4 seasons on the highest degree, having handled glandular fever and a collection of accidents in addition to his personal type.
Having been given a reprieve as a late in, he’d then completed the job he was tasked to do, a fiendishly tough one, exceptionally effectively, and even kicked a very nice team-lifting aim for his troubles.
With confidence certainly sky-high, the influence being taken out of the sport and having to observe powerless because the Magpies, and particularly the person he’d clamped, overran his crew will certainly be devastating for the 22-year outdated. For a crew nonetheless effectively and really in rebuilding mode and attempting to get video games, expertise and confidence into its kids, that’s close to sufficient to unforgivable.
I wrote in level 1 that North followers might really feel aggrieved on the umpiring late within the piece; however the largest cause of all for his or her capitulation was self-inflicted.
Clarkson and the Roos did a lot proper for 3 quarters; one howler isn’t a dangling offence, however there’s no mistaking that that was precisely what it was.
3. John Longmire did Joel Amartey soiled
Talking of coaches having howlers: John Longmire’s choice to twice bench Joel Amartey within the last quarter on Saturday night time, regardless of him sitting on 9 targets, was shortly derided across the footy world.
Longmire’s defence of the dual benchings was just about what you’d anticipate it to be – that he and Sydney had a match to fret about subsequent week, and didn’t need to danger an damage.
“As soon as we had the sport received, it was essential for the crew that we taken care of him and bought him to subsequent week,” he stated post-match.
However I’m sorry, Horse: you possibly can’t critically be that sensible and logical when one in all your younger stars has a golden likelihood, possibly the one one he’ll ever have, to kick a bag of ten?
You can inform from Amartey’s face on the bench that he was bewildered and even a bit pissed off by being taken off; if Isaac Heeney’s declare in his post-match interview with Seven that he’d should ‘have a phrase’ with the teaching employees about it’s any information, his teammates weren’t overly impressed both.
The chances of Amartey getting injured, even from over-exertion, had been certainly minimal – the Crows hadn’t been in a position to lay a finger on him all night, in spite of everything.
It isn’t even in regards to the theatre of getting a participant on 9 targets be appeared for at each alternative, just like the Swans did in his transient stints on the bottom between these two spells. It’s about giving a younger man the possibility of a lifetime on the rarest of recent footy feats, one he can look again on along with his youngsters and grandkids after his profession winds up.
I’m solely barely exaggerating right here: however the distinction between a nine- and ten-goal haul is much larger than one additional main. If it wasn’t, we wouldn’t have seen the Swans do their darnedest to get him that tenth, as we’ve seen different groups do different gamers in the identical state of affairs over time.
It was as ruthless as Michael Atherton declaring on Graeme Hick throughout the 1994/95 Ashes, when he was one shot away from a primary century towards Australia. Besides this was much more inexcusable, as a result of bringing Amartey again on wasn’t going to influence the results of a sport already received within the least.
Regardless of the causes behind it, and nonetheless cheap they’re, Longmire did Amartey soiled on the Adelaide Oval. He deserved the chance to write down himself into the file books: and given his earlier career-best was 4 targets, there’s a great likelihood he’ll by no means get a greater one.
4. Nick Watson is nice for footy
There’s one thing about small forwards with a little bit of cheek that drives us opposition followers wild.
We’ve seen it with Alan Didak, Paul Medhurst, Mark Williams, and most just lately with Jack Ginnivan: and only a handful of video games into his AFL profession, we’re seeing it with Nick Watson.
I can perceive why Watson’s antics on Saturday afternoon would have irked Richmond supporters: the first-year Hawk usually taunted the 92,000-strong crowd with waves and shushes, received a number of doubtful excessive contact free kicks, after which proceeded so as to add to his rising record of shanks in entrance of aim with a wayward 1.4 scoreline to complete the day.
All that makes him a lightning rod for criticism of the ‘talks the discuss however can’t stroll the stroll’ selection – however I occur to suppose pests like ‘the Wizard’ are good for the sport.
Footy wants its pantomime villains; they add an additional degree of spice to the competition. Their supporters love them, and opposition followers like to hate them.
Primarily based on his first few video games, Watson appears greater than able to take up the mantle of antagonist in chief, and alongside Ginnivan drive rival followers nuts for the subsequent 15 years.
He’ll want to repair up his kicking for aim – imaginative and prescient of him arcing out to show easy set pictures into quasi-snaps was fairly alarming – however good gamers discover a method; I keep in mind Lewis Jetta kicking 19 straight behinds earlier than eventually kicking his first AFL aim again in 2010, earlier than kicking 45.17 in Sydney’s 2012 premiership.
Watson is right here to say, and so is all our annoyance at his antics if we’re not Hawthorn diehards: and lengthy could it proceed.
5. Some overdue credit score for the Canines
Essentially the most spectacular four-quarter efficiency of Spherical 14 was that of the Western Bulldogs – by some margin.
With their season on the road and coming off a heavy loss to Brisbane the place fatigue appeared an actual issue, the Bulldogs completely dismantled a Fremantle outfit many anticipated to win on Saturday afternoon, for fairly clearly their finest win of 2024.
They neutralised the Dockers’ largest weapon – their phenomenal stoppage dominance in 2024 to date – by dominating the clearances within the first half, though Freo shaded the depend. Their ball motion from half-back was daring and exact, with Bailey Dale among the many finest afield in his newest All-Australian-calibre efficiency.
Marcus Bontempelli did Marcus Bontempelli issues recent off a drip feed after being in poor health all week; Adam Treloar made his omission from the lengthy record of AA contenders introduced mid-week look foolish; Ed Richards’ addition to the midfield group has given them real zip across the contest.
And most impressively of all, their ahead line was a relentless menace within the air and on the bottom, making mincemeat of the stingiest defence within the AFL.
To kick 23 targets regardless of lacking, in Aaron Naughton and Sam Darcy, their two highest goalscorers of the season is a fairly distinctive feat, and with Rhylee West (4 targets), the returning Cody Weightman (three) and the much-maligned Rory Lobb (three) among the many host of Canines getting in on the motion, the sheer quantity of avenues in direction of aim was merely an excessive amount of for a Dockers crew with not less than two if not three members of the present All-Australian again six.
There have been nonetheless weaknesses: the Canines had been scored on very simply throughout Freo’s solely two intervals of ascendancy, late within the first and third quarters once they twice managed a run of targets. That’s most likely going to be a difficulty for the rest of the season regardless of how far they go, however kicking 149 factors affords you loads of leeway in case your backline isn’t as much as snuff.
This was the Bulldogs at their easiest, and the very fact that is their ceiling makes the instances once they collapse to lose winnable video games all of the extra irritating. Had they defeated Hawthorn earlier this season, the defeat that threatened to deliver down Luke Beveridge’s time as coach, they’d presently be sitting in fifth.
However after an immensely powerful five-week fixture since then wherein they’ve performed 4 top-eight groups plus a resurgent Brisbane, the Canines have gone 3-2 and maintained their excellent proportion. Contemplating they’ve had a torrid time on the damage entrance, and misplaced Darcy to suspension, in that interval too, you couldn’t actually ask for extra.
Nonetheless a sport outdoors the eight with their bye to come back, the Bulldogs have their work minimize out for them to make the finals, and whereas they’ll begin favourites towards a all of the sudden harmful North Melbourne following the week off, their brutal fixture will get tougher nonetheless with matches towards Port Adelaide (away), Carlton, Geelong (in Geelong) and Sydney (away). Yikes.
But when the Bont can pull off stuff like this, then who’s to say they’ll’t ace the problem?
There’s nothing Bevo’s Bulldogs like greater than when their backs are pressed towards the wall. A tricky run would possibly effectively be the making of them in season 2024.
6. Can we minimize Brayden Maynard some slack?
The totally different response to Dustin Martin and Brayden Maynard’s milestones across the footy world was as stark because it’s potential to get.
Martin’s three hundredth match introduced with it nothing however every week of acclaim and fanfare – fully becoming, thoughts you – with Richmond followers and impartial supporters alike coming collectively to share highlights, debate his place among the many sport’s greats, and collectively deal with the view from some sections of the media that he ought to discuss to them extra with the scorn such a take deserves.
As for Maynard’s three hundredth sport? Not far more than mockery and sneering: a few of it self-inflicted, like when a Pies fan determined to place collectively a package deal of all of the scraps he’s bought into over his profession moderately than precise highlights like targets or that point his good kick arrange Jamie Elliott’s profitable aim towards Carlton, most of it not.
It has been a very long time since a participant has been as unanimously despised as Maynard by followers of all 17 different golf equipment – North Melbourne supporters really booing his disposals Melbourne fan-style throughout the third quarter regardless of him having completed nothing to any Kangaroo ever was in regards to the low level.
I ponder how a lot of the hatred that goes his method from all corners now’s as a result of he’s nearly the one even reasonably unlikeable participant at Collingwood lately; the place as soon as you may safely despise Alan Didak, Paul Medhurst, Nick Maxwell and co. and unfold it evenly, now it’s all coming Maynard’s method.
By level of comparability, Blake Hardwick is a particularly related participant to Maynard – a troublesome, no-nonsense backman who loves a scrap and isn’t overly expert or damaging however tries his guts out each week. Nobody hates Blake Hardwick the best way they do Brayden Maynard.
It’s time to chop him a bit little bit of slack, in my opinion. He’s a superbly cheap footballer – you need to be to play 200 video games – taking part in a task that will get little if any public acclaim: small defender.
No, you wouldn’t kill to have him or a participant like him in your crew, however somebody of his ilk is inevitably part of each good crew.
You may hate what he does on the sector – specifically his love of selecting fights and flying the flag – however I’m unsure criticism of any journalist claiming he’s a distinct man off the sector as easy PR within the week of his milestone sport is warranted.
His phrases after his two hundredth sport, paying tribute to a detailed pal who just lately handed away in a robust interview with Fox Footy, was really shifting, and gave an perception into the person individuals at Collingwood have constantly stated he’s: caring, thoughtful and compassionate.
On the very least, 200 video games deserves respect. It’s time we gave Brayden Maynard that not less than.
(Picture by Russell Freeman/AFL Images through Getty Photographs)
Random ideas
– Of all the good Dustin Martin stats, that is my favorite: he’s made extra individuals glad than another single participant within the historical past of the sport.
– Jye Amiss has the worst set shot routine I’ve ever seen. Hobbles in, leans again, will get method too near the person on the mark – no surprise he’s so inaccurate.
– Bobby Hill’s was a pleasant mark, however it’s not near Jamie Elliott’s from Anzac Day, proper?
– Logan Morris is a sneakily good younger footballer: give him three weeks and it received’t be ‘sneakily’ anymore.
– I’ve watched this Nick Haynes mind explosion ten instances and nonetheless discover it extraordinarily humorous.
– If you happen to suppose anybody else is the very best participant within the sport, please know you might be fallacious.
– Nick Daicos going as much as Zac Fisher to console him about his last-second miss falls firmly into my ‘too good’ class. Simply let unhappy blokes be unhappy, Nick.